Five Civilized Tribes

Gallery of the Five Civilized Tribes:
Sequoyah (Cherokee),
Pushmataha (Choctaw), Selocta (Muscogee/Creek), a "Characteristic Chicasaw Head", and
Osceola (Seminole). The portraits were drawn or painted between 1775 and 1850.

The term "Five Civilized Tribes" derives from the colonial and early federal period in the
history of the United States. It refers to five
Native American nations—the
Cherokee,
Chickasaw,
Choctaw,
Creek (Muscogee), and
Seminole.[1] These are the first five tribes that Anglo-European settlers generally considered to be "civilized" according to
their own worldview, because these five tribes adopted attributes of the colonists' culture,[2] for example, Christianity, centralized governments, literacy, market participation, written constitutions, intermarriage with white Americans, and plantation slavery practices. The Five Civilized Tribes tended to maintain stable political relations with the Europeans.

History

The Five "Civilized" Tribes were
indigenous peoples of the Americas who lived in the
Southeastern United States. Most were descendants of what is now called the
Mississippian culture, an agrarian culture that grew crops of corn and beans, with
hereditary religious and political elites. The Mississippian Culture flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from 800 to 1500. Before European contact these tribes were generally
matrilineal societies. Agriculture was the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in towns (some covering hundreds of acres and populated with thousands of people). These communities regulated their space with planned streets, subdivided into residential and public areas. Their system of government was hereditary.
Chiefdoms were of varying size and complexity, with high levels of military organization.[3]

George Washington and
Henry Knox pursued an agenda of cultural transformation in relation to Native Americans. The Cherokee and Choctaw tended, in turn, to adopt and appropriate certain cultural aspects of the federation of colonies. At the time of the Declaration of Independence, the culture of the United States as a nation was, itself, emergent. Many of the cultural practices appropriated by The Five Tribes were ones that they found useful.[4]

In the early part of the 19th Century, the US Government initiated a displacement of the existing societies living east of the Mississippi River, including The Five Tribes, to lands west of the river. This displacement initiative was dubbed the
Indian Removal. The Indian Removal forced a significant number of the Five Tribes to
Indian Territory in other parts of the North American continent. A significant number were displaced to the area that would, in future, become the state of
Oklahoma. At the time of their removal, the tribes were
suzerain nations.

Routes of southern removals to the first Indian Territory of the Five Civilized Tribes.

The federally legislated displacement of the tribes from their homes east of the
Mississippi River took place over several decades during the series of removals, which is also known as the
Trail of Tears. The territory to which they were displaced was, at the time, called
Indian Territory, currently eastern Oklahoma. The most infamous removal was the
Cherokee Trail of Tears of 1838, when President
Martin Van Buren enforced the contentious
Treaty of New Echota with the
Cherokee Nation. One point of contention regarding the treaty is whether it is an instrument of mass displacement in violation of the human rights on which the new republic had been established, or a legal exchange of territory for land further west.

During the
American Civil War, the politics of the Five Tribes were divergent. The Choctaw and Chickasaw fought predominantly alongside the
Confederates while the Creek and Seminole fought alongside the
Union. The Cherokee fought a civil war within their own nation between the majority Confederates and the minority, pro-Union camps. As an element in
Reconstruction after the Civil War, new
Reconstruction Treaties were signed with the indigenous nations that had entered into treaties with the
Confederate States of America. The Civil War was not good to the tribes. The first three battles of the Civil War were fought in Indian territory, with some tribes joining treaties with the Confederates, and others with the Union.[5]

Once the tribes had been relocated to
Indian Territory, the United States government promised that their lands would be free of white settlement. Some settlers violated that with impunity, even before 1893, when the government opened the "
Cherokee Strip" to outside settlement in the
Oklahoma Land Run. In 1907, the
Oklahoma Territory and the Indian Territory were merged to form the state of Oklahoma. Relative to other states, all Five Tribes are represented in significant numbers in the population of Oklahoma today.

Experiment of civilizing

Washington promulgated a doctrine that held that American Indians were equals, but that their society was inferior. He formulated and implemented a policy to encourage the "civilising" process, which
Thomas Jefferson continued.[6] The noted Andrew Jackson historian Robert Remini wrote "they presumed that once the Indians adopted the practice of
private property, built homes, farmed, educated their children, and embraced Christianity, these Native Americans would win acceptance from white Americans.[6] Washington's six-point plan included impartial justice toward Indians; regulated buying of Indian lands; promotion of commerce; promotion of experiments to civilize or improve Indian society; presidential authority to give presents; and punishing those who violated Indian rights.[7] The government appointed agents, like
Benjamin Hawkins, to live among Indians and to encourage them, through example and instruction, to live like whites.[4] The tribes of the southeast adopted Washington's policy as they established schools, took up
yeoman farming practices, converted to Christianity, and built homes similar to those of their colonial neighbors.[7]

How different would be the sensation of a philosophic mind to reflect that instead of exterminating a part of the human race by our modes of population that we had persevered through all difficulties and at last had imparted our Knowledge of cultivating and the arts, to the Aboriginals of the Country by which the source of future life and happiness had been preserved and extended. But it has been conceived to be impracticable to civilize the Indians of North America – This opinion is probably more convenient than just.

— Henry Knox, Notes to George Washington from Henry Knox.

It is notable that the legal systems among the five tribes reputedly appropriated
slavery.